The most important thing you can do in your life is identify the things you have control over, and do what you can to change those things to be the way you want them to be.

Most of what is happening in the world, none of us have control over. We are increasingly losing control of things that we thought were basic, such as the freedom to move around as we wish, the freedom to work, the freedom to attend church and go to the gym.

It’s necessary now that we make a list of things that we can control, so that we can focus on those.

What We Eat

We still have the ability, at least for the time being, to make decisions about what food we buy at the grocery store and consume. This is key, as this is your body, and your health, and that is the most fundamental aspect of existence.

Eat as well as you can. Focus on meat. Avoid cheap carbs. Avoid sugars. This will make you stronger, and it will help you to keep your head clear.

Your Physical Fitness

With the gyms closed, a lot of us have been thrown off as to keeping ourselves fit. You need to alter your patterns. You need to learn to do exercises at home. If you can get kettle bells or other weights, you should get those, but if not, you need to learn how to do bodyweight exercises. You can also integrate walking more than we normally would. Walking is exercise, but it also eases the mind to travel along the land by foot, particularly if you have access to nature trails.

I want to do some tutorials on bodyweight workouts, but I’m still conquering the art myself. There are many available if you google yandex around, but we should note that the most famous such work is Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade. The full text of the series is available here.

Get Up in the Morning and Shave

Regardless of whether you have work, or if you’re working from home, you need to get up in the morning and shave. Take a shower and put on clean clothing. If you start just rolling out of bed at noon and wearing sweatpants around the house all day, your mental health will deteriorate rapidly.

Live like you’ve got something to do, even if you don’t.

Do What You Can to Maintain Friendships and Family Relations

Everyone is falling apart right now, and some of the relationships you have are likely to have become impossible to maintain, at least at this current time. You have no control over what other people do, and if other people are behaving in strange ways, or being abusive with you, you have a right to protect yourself from that, and you should. However, you need to do whatever is in your power to do what you can for your friends and family, and maintain the relationships.

Things are going to get a lot harder than they are right now. So you’re going to need whatever relationships you can maintain. Again, everyone is having a hard time, so try not to judge people too harshly, and also realize that you may be being unfair to others. You can’t see your own behavior, so do your best to give your people the benefit of the doubt, and be amicable whenever possible. Again, if a relationship becomes so draining that you can’t be a part of it anymore, that is what it is, but if that does happen, do your very best not to end things with the other person in a definite way. You don’t really need to end it at all, just take a step back. You can simply tell the person that you’re going through some things and haven’t had time, which is clearly true.

Again: when things get worse, we’re going to need each other even more than we do now. So really try to maintain your friendships, and strengthen them if you can.

Don’t Drink More Than You Need To

Sometimes, you need a drink. We all have those times. Sometimes, you need two drinks. It happens to the best of us. But there is never a situation where drinking less is not better than drinking more. So if it is ever possible to drink less, you should drink less.

Obviously, avoid any other substances like the plague. A stressful time is a very easy time to pick up some addiction, and you do not want that. No matter what level of temporary relief you might get from drugs, it will never justify the long-term effects of addiction.

Don’t Let Women Involve You in Their Weird Crap

Women love times of crisis, because they rarely face any consequences and a crisis gives them the opportunity to emotionally exploit and abuse men. Don’t let the women in your life pull you into their weird crap. If women start acting weird, just back away from them. Don’t play any more games than you normally would, because if they start seeing that you’re more willing than normal to engage them in their bullshit, they will keep pushing you to see how far they can get you to go.

If you’ve lost your job, there is a very good chance the woman will leave. If the woman is leaving, then let her go. Don’t submit yourself to her sadism. Remember: there is zero chance she’s going to stay because you begged her to, but there is a chance she’ll stay because you didn’t.

All of you with wives and girlfriends, no matter how long you’ve been with her, need to prepare yourself for her to leave. You really should be prepared for that anyway, just as a matter of course, but some of you probably aren’t. Understand: you have more or less zero control over whether or not she decides to leave. What you have total control over is how you react to it. So understand: she does not define you and you don’t need her.

Take Whatever Work You Can Get

For the most part, you don’t have control over whether you get laid off. But you do have the ability to take new work that comes along, and to look for new work after getting laid off.

You might be faced with a situation where you can’t get work, of course. In that situation, it is then up to you to be able to deal with that, to manage your emotions, to stay strong.

Move Out of the City

Hell is coming for all of us, but the inferno is going to be in the centers of the big cities. You, as an adult man, have the ability to move out of the city, as I have continually advised you to do.

Given the closeness of the election, I’ve started saying this less often, because at some point, telling people to move before the election is going to sound absurd. But I still very much believe that everyone should do it, even in these few remaining weeks.

As I’ve explained, there are small towns all around the major cities, within a 30 to 70 minute drive. Your life will be better and cheaper in ways that more than make up for the time you will spend in commute.

Beware of people on the internet who are claiming this won’t help you. It obviously will help you. Just think about it for 15 seconds. The people saying it won’t help are people who are coping with their own lack of agency in doing it themselves.

What is coming is bigger than all of us, but we must face it. Denial does not help anything.

For you teenagers still living with your parents: sorry. I know you can’t move, and I know you’re a significant part of the readership here, so I’m not trying to stress you out unnecessarily.

And no, I don’t think you should try to convince your parents. That will not work, and it will simply make them resent you. If you have a father in the home, you can try to talk to him about it, but you need to not act like you’re smarter than him or that you know better than him. What you would want to do is ask him what he thinks, and then guide him through the reasoning while making him believe he’s reached the conclusion himself, and then tell him you agree and you’ll support his decision if mom doesn’t like it. I think you’re all smart enough to figure out how to deal with your own father in this way, but it would basically be things along the lines of:

• Do you think the city is going to be safe after the election?
• Do you think it will be safer outside of the city?
• Have you ever thought about moving outside of the city? (You can add that you would like it and say that it might save money.)

Just be positive about it, and do not start freaking out screaming about how the blacks are going to turn to cannibalism by Christmas.

Do Whatever You Need to Do to Manage Your Mental Health

It may seem trite, but it isn’t: a major part of taking care of yourself is making sure that you are doing things that you enjoy. Even when the world is collapsing down around you, taking an hour or two on a Wednesday evening to play Fortnite, watch anime, read a science fiction novel, or whatever it is you do to relax, is something you simply must do in order to keep yourself together.

Obviously, the flip side of that is that you need to not drop out. Don’t start playing video games 12 hours a day because reality is so stressful you can’t manage it. Everything in moderation, but you need to keep an equilibrium, and doing things that calm your nerves is something you absolutely must do to avoid having some kind of breakdown.

Next Week on Self-Help Sunday:

Don’t Talk to People About Your Problems!

Next week we will learn about how you need to keep your problems to yourself or share them with a close male you trust. Do not go around telling women or strangers about your problems.